SECRET CODES
We are more than one-third through NaPoWriMo. If you feel like you’ve started to make things up (two parts desperation, one part coffee grinds), then Carolee Sherwood’s prompt for Day 12 will play into your hand. Make up a secret code. Begin by writing a few nonsense sentences, like “The raindrops tap out a cry for help” or “The dandelions are saying all at once, ‘You are overwhelmed.’” The formula is easy: come up with a message and assign it to something unlikely. Remember, of course, that inanimate objects can speak and that signs and symbols may be nonverbal. Once you have a few sentences, select the one that is most intriguing to you and use it to start a poem.
HERE'S MINE:
This prompt was right up my street! I love secret codes and messages and riddles and anagrams. I think I strayed from Carolee's prompt, but it was the prompt that got me to write this. So:
EATING DAFF'S
Emit the tin age man drank all the gin
ate all the food and then swallowed
the gate. In the garden the daffodils
in bloom are eating all the daisies
now the daisies are eating daff's for lunch.
Ganite, the food agent I met Monday
declared it an eating disorder,
and said: But don't get in a pickle
fret not or the eating daff's may
fear that they will be beaten
soon, how would you unscramble this?
12042+10
